Session
Weekday Session 2: Missions at Scale
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
The Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2) is a mission partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) and the US Space Force (USSF). The mission consists of a constellation of six smallsats with a primary Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) payload, which provides observations of the Earth's neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. These observations are delivered in real-time to operational weather and space weather prediction centers across the globe. Since launching in 2019, observations from COSMIC-2 have been making a significant impact on global numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. The mission has shown positive impacts on weather forecast accuracy and tropical cyclogenesis (hurricane/typhoon) prediction. On the space weather side, COSMIC-2 is providing essential information about ionospheric conditions at latencies that no other mission provides. In addition, COSMIC-2 employs a forward-looking ground system, consisting of stations operated by domestic agencies, foreign partners, and commercial Ground Stations as a Service (GSaaS). This architecture provides extremely good latency for products, has developed processes that have benefitted other NOAA missions, and can serve as a framework for future ground system enterprises.
COSMIC-2 has shown itself to be an asset to the global weather and space weather community raised the profile of the value of RO at large. It has produced new types of observations and pushed ground architecture forward. It is a hallmark for the impact that small, less expensive constellations can have in global operational systems.
FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2: Impacts on Global Operational Forecasting and Future Architectures With a SmallSat Constellation
Utah State University, Logan, UT
The Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2) is a mission partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) and the US Space Force (USSF). The mission consists of a constellation of six smallsats with a primary Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) payload, which provides observations of the Earth's neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. These observations are delivered in real-time to operational weather and space weather prediction centers across the globe. Since launching in 2019, observations from COSMIC-2 have been making a significant impact on global numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. The mission has shown positive impacts on weather forecast accuracy and tropical cyclogenesis (hurricane/typhoon) prediction. On the space weather side, COSMIC-2 is providing essential information about ionospheric conditions at latencies that no other mission provides. In addition, COSMIC-2 employs a forward-looking ground system, consisting of stations operated by domestic agencies, foreign partners, and commercial Ground Stations as a Service (GSaaS). This architecture provides extremely good latency for products, has developed processes that have benefitted other NOAA missions, and can serve as a framework for future ground system enterprises.
COSMIC-2 has shown itself to be an asset to the global weather and space weather community raised the profile of the value of RO at large. It has produced new types of observations and pushed ground architecture forward. It is a hallmark for the impact that small, less expensive constellations can have in global operational systems.
